Seoul's hopes for a dramatic finish to the torch relay at the 1988 Games were almost dashed when local media broke an embargo on reporting who would be the final torchbearer.

Park Seh-jik, the chief organizer of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, recalls in his memoirs that the Korean media had agreed to keep the details of how the Olympic Flame would be lit a secret from the public until the last minute. Unfortunately, fate intervened to ensure this was not the case.

"I made a protest immediately after I saw a newspaper report that the flame would be lit (by a torch-bearer) with the use of a lift," Park writes in the recently-published Chinese edition of his book "I Designed the Seoul Olympics."

The South Korean newspaper explained that they had taken the report from the Japanese media, which had got an inside scoop on the rehearsal.

"But I still hoped they would bear in mind the bigger picture and keep some things secret," writes Park.

But the cat had been let out of the bag. The public knew that 76-year-old Sohn Kee-chung, who won the marathon at the 1936 Berlin Games, would be the final bearer of the "sacred flame," prompting organizers to make an 11th-hour turnaround: now 19-year-old Lim Chun-ae, a triple gold medalist at the 1986 Asian Games, would take the flame from Sohn.

She would hand it to three torchbearers who would light the cauldron together: a rural teacher, another marathoner and a young female dance student.

To keep the press from knowing the new arrangements, Park asked that Lim only rehearse on the morning of the opening ceremony. He also avoided telling other organizers to prevent any leaks.

Although shifting Sohn down the chain of torchbearers was a difficult decision in light of his place in history, the ceremony was a roaring success. When Sohn entered the stadium it brought tears to an entire nation.

Sohn became a national hero decades earlier for the way in which he handled the medal-giving ceremony in Berlin to protest Japan's occupation of Korea. Forced to compete under the Japanese name Kitei Son, Sohn bowed his head in sadness as his victory was celebrated under the Japanese flag and the Japanese national anthem.